waynos 521 work truck

[Charlie69]

That is good not sure if d.p new this.

[d.p]

34 minutes ago, Charlie69 said:

That is good not sure if d.p new this.

Knew what?  That there are four strokes? 

[wayno]

18 hours ago, d.p said:

Knew what?  That there are four strokes? 

 

I think Charlie was referring to knowing which stroke number 1 cylinder is on(compression stroke?) and how easy it is to find out when it shows TDC at the crank pulley, if you remove the oil filler cap and look down your looking at the #1 intake valve cam lobe, if the lobe is pointed slightly up your on the compression stroke, if it is pointed slightly down then it is 180 degrees out and the crank needs to be turned one more revolution to put it on the compression stroke, this really only applies if the distributor has been removed or your putting the timing chain on.

 

Fact is I have always told everyone that the #1 cylinder cam lobes need to be at 10am and 2pm when putting a head on the block, well that is in the ball park but not true, it likely is closer to 10:30am and 2:30pm and that is why all my cams were timed wrong, early in my Datsun owning life and actually until recently I did not look at the groove and notch to put the cam gear on, I just had the cam at 10am and 2pm and all my engines were off a tooth, I drove them that way for years without issues, but there was more power to be had if the cam was timed properly, but for me when it is set up right I have a knocking issue with the work truck because I run regular gas and pull a trailer, the reason I run regular gas is because that is what I run in my pressure washers as that is what I have done for a living for 27 years now, when my work truck starts running out of gas I use any pressure washer gas left over to get me home if needed, if I ran premium non-ethanol gas I would have to make a special trip to this certain gas station that is out of the way across town to fill it(there is a place closer now) and that was not going to work so I run regular pump gas in this work truck, all my other trucks and cars use premium non-ethanol gas as they all have metal tanks and ethanol gas eats metal unless it is cycled all the time(fresh), my work truck eats gas pulling that trailer that likely weighs over a ton with all my equipment in it(there is 2 of everything in that trailer), it gets a major workout every time it moves with that trailer connected, so the gas is always fresh.

 

 

 

[wayno]

This has been running long enough to put a couple hundred miles on it, maybe 250 miles, I changed out the filter and oil(break in oil) yesterday, but first I checked the valve clearances and it was all over the place, some were loose and some where tight, all needed adjustment, I was hoping it would fix the squeak, sadly the squeak is still there and unchanged, I am thinking it has something to do with the cam, it is rpm related and it does not change with the transmission in or out of gear clutch in or out, and it is very annoying, I looked at all the lobes on the cam and I was not happy with 2 of them, they seemed rough to me, it is a new cam, but it sat for years in my back room, I put assembly lube all over all the lobes and soaked the whole engine with oil before starting it by turning it over with the starter with all the plugs out, that top end was soaked and the gauge showed oil pressure.

I also checked the Matchbox Distributor, I wanted to know if the vacuum advance worked, I found a hose and stuck in on the port with the cap off and sucked on the hose and it did not move, so I pulled it distributor and looked at it, I sucked on that hose more and was able to make it move but it only returned half way of what it moved, I suspect when it was running it would return all the way, there is a plastic thing that holds 3 or 4 bearings that was wasted, so I pulled it apart and when I got to the piece that I welded the slot shorter when I re-curved the distributor I was disappointed, the shaft looked like a spun bearing, I actually pulled it apart because one of the points was making contact with the outer ring so I wanted to see why, I looked around in my parts room and found a matchbox out of a 1980 Datsun 510 car, it really was not meant to be on this truck, stuff was different, the vacuum advance assembly was rotated 180 degrees, and none of the plates I had would put it where I needed it, so I modified a Z24 plate and made it work, it took a couple hours but I figured it out.

The first thing I noticed was it advanced differently than my normal distributor, it only moved 10 to 15 degrees mechanically and was slower to move when revving the engine compared to my other distributor, also when the vacuum line was connected it advanced less than my original distributor but it was just as fast when the vacuum moved it(2 different speeds, slow mechanical, fast vacuum), my original would move over 25 degrees fast without the vacuum hose and connecting the vacuum hose changed nothing, this one seems like it is advancing less and it is not welded up, I have it set at 5 degrees BTDC but I have not had it on the freeway yet to see if it is knocking/pinging.

Another thing I noticed is this engine starts way easier than the other engine ever started, I think that is weird, I also think my other engine has more power than this new engine, the engine that has been in it for almost 10 years has a Z22E block from a car, this new one has a Z22S block from a truck, is there a difference?

Edited May 11, 2021 by wayno

[Charlie69]

Wayne I like that you are not afraid to tear something apart to figure out how it is supposed to work.  I have 2 matchbox distributors I am going to send to distributor guy for rebuild and recurve.

 

I did not know there was so much difference in car and truck matchboxes.  I have always pulled truck matchboxes.

[banzai510(hainz)]

wayno try a different distributor and see if that helps.

Dist the adv advance mechanics are not all the same but over the years the springs wear out and might just have a better vaccum advance or really works better.  I had my motor ping all the time and later I swap dist to another and was less likely to ping!!!

If the motor is mechanically timed right its really the best cheapest option to try out. besides cam timing adjustment

Edited May 11, 2021 by banzai510(hainz)

[wayno]

Well i drove it on the freeway today and it started knocking/pinging, I will retard the distributor a couple degrees and start looking for another Matchbox to re-curve, I have one I changed the drive gear out to use on a 320/520 engine, I suppose since I used a electronic positive ground MG Midget distributor on that engine instead it frees that one up, I will look at the one I pulled a little more, it ran fine except the vacuum advance was not working properly since that plastic thing that held the ball bears was in several pieces.

 

I also need to figure out what that squeak is, it is very annoying, it sounds like a loose lifter or in my case a loose rocker, but at lower RPMs it is a very loud annoying squeak, it has nothing to do with the clutch or transmission. 

[d.p]

Not the belt squeaking? Or the alt? 

[wayno]

It is not the alternator, power steering pump, coolant pump, or the distributor, I have this thing I do to find out where noises are coming from, I stick a large screwdriver against the object and stick my ear against the screw driver grip/handle, if the noise is coming from that object it will be significantly louder, it is not any of them, the trouble is I really cannot run it without the valve cover to do that as oil sprays everywhere as I tried, I shut it down right away as oil was going everywhere, every time cam turned it shot oil out of the hole in the lobe at an idle, all 8 of them were spraying oil all over the engine compartment, it's certainly not a Chevy small block.

1 hour ago, d.p said:

Not the belt squeaking? Or the alt? 

 

I am starting to think it is the cam, if I remember I am going to take the truck to the machine shop and have them listen to it, it squeaks the worst at around 2000rpms which is 1000rpms for the cam, it would be a major pain to remove all the rockers and the cam gear just to spin it to see if it is turning freely as I do not want to make another head gasket, the two LZ head gaskets I bought have the coolant holes in the wrong places so that was kinda a waste of money, anyway I looked at all the cam towers and I do not see grindings/shavings/aluminum muck from when aluminum binds and wears away when it gets hot from turning ruining the cam towers or when there is a lack of oil and it goes dry, it is a very loud squeak at 2000rpms, all other times it sounds like loose rocker.

 

I checked the timing and it had changed again, I had it at 5 degrees BTDC the last time I set it but when I checked it this time it was at 15 degrees BTDC again, this is the second time it has done this, I am thinking it has to do with the idle RPM when it is cold versus hot, I have never had an engine act this way before in my life, it jumps 10 degrees, before it was at 5 degrees BTDC and I tighten down the distributor lock bolt, well I had to loosen the bolt to retard it and get it back on 5 degrees BTDC, I am running out of travel in the slot, it is really strange and it is the second time it has happened, it did it with the other distributor once.

 

I bought $50.00 worth of non-ethanol premium gas(92 octane rating) this afternoon and it did not even fill the tank, what it did do was change the idle, it would idle slightly rough at 700rpms, after I bought that gas and drove it home it dropped to 500rpms and it was rattling the whole truck, especially the exhaust system, I have an electric fuel pump and a return line, so the fresh gas gets to the SU carbs pretty fast.

[datzenmike]

wayno was the vacuum advance hose off? I know. There should be no vacuum at idle but you never know if something is wrong.

 

Warm the engine up and take the fan belt off and try it. This would eliminate the alternator, water pump and clutch fan (if you have one) as the cause of the noise.

[wayno]

5 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

wayno was the vacuum advance hose off? I know. There should be no vacuum at idle but you never know if something is wrong.

 

Warm the engine up and take the fan belt off and try it. This would eliminate the alternator, water pump and clutch fan (if you have one) as the cause of the noise.

 

Yes the vacuum advance hose was off when I timed it, sometimes I forget to connect it back up, if it was really knocking/pinging bad like when on a trip and someone decided to put regular in it instead of premium because they were cheap I would just remove that vacuum line and it would quit knocking/pinging(before it was a work truck), by the way I connected that hose after timing it one time and I checked the timing, it did not change the timing at all, but it did change how it advanced, first it mechanically advances slowly, then when the vacuum part kicks in it advances fast, I watched it do it when slowly revving the engine, slow and then fast, it only advances slowly when that vacuum line is disconnected, but this is with the 1980 Z20 distributor, the old truck matchbox that is messed up I expect did not work properly anymore, it just advanced a lot right away, it went past the end of the saw tooth timing plate.

[banzai510(hainz)]

Would a lifter squeek?

 

 

Datsun mIke would know more but on taller motors isnt the timing slightly less anyways

Edited May 12, 2021 by banzai510(hainz)

[datzenmike]

No lifters on the L series. The cam acts directly on the rocker arm.

 

The flame has to travel across the combustion chamber and this takes a finite amount of time. Higher compression packs the molecules closer together and like a town on fire, the closer the buildings are to each other the faster the fire spreads. If higher compression, the timing can be retarded so that it reaches maximum pressure just after TDC. Lower compression takes longer to spread, so it must be ignited sooner or advanced.

 

I found references to 5 and 10 degrees for the L16. (521/510 and the 620) The L18 and L20B were 12 degrees. The L16 has the smallest combustion chamber there is, and slightly higher compression than the later L20B, so I would expect it would be less advanced.

[wayno]

The L block doesn't have lifters like the Chevy small block, you can run them with the valve cover off to adjust the lifters, but I cannot run this L block with the valve cover off because oil sprays everywhere.

 

If the cam went dry from lack of oil it would squeak like this but louder, I cannot see if the cam is getting oil inside the 4 towers, but oil flies everywhere in the engine compartment from the cam lobes if I start the engine without the valve cover.

 

OK, this morning it was squeaking away to the job I had today, after my job I took the truck to the machine shop I use but they looked closed so I drove home, on the way home I noticed the squeak had lost most of its volume, it was less than half as noisy as it was, this got me thinking, one of my theories was the engine had set in my back room for 7 years at TDC, I thought maybe the cam got bent sitting there for that 7 years, but the lack of volume on the way home made me wonder if maybe dried out assembly lube had plugged one of the cam tower oil holes and it was running dry for a while, on the way home it sounded way better, I will know more tomorrow morning.

 

I did remove the valve cover today and was looking for a cracked cam or cam tower since the noise had changed, I could not see any issues, I looked at the top and then turned it 180 degrees and looked at the top which was the bottom, everything looked fine.

 

I have another question, what does this head chamber look like, to me it looks weird, is it like an L16 combustion chamber?

 

It also has a weird thermostat housing with the by-pass hole in a weird spot just above the temp sensor instead of where it normally is diagonally located to the upper right with a 90 degree elbow fitting, has anyone ever seen this before?

 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by wayno

[datzenmike]

Look on the bottom edge of the head between the #1 and #2 plug for the head ID. Only the L16 got the 210 or 'number head' and it has the smallest combustion chamber of all the L heads. Earliest L20B, '74, got the A87 L18 head. '75-'77 L20Bs got the U67 head which was the only one without coolant ports for the intake. The '78-'80 L20B got the W58 with round exhaust ports. A87, U67 and W58 were all the same size and the largest combustion chamber volume.

 

The thermostat housing is from an L20B I think. The broken fitting on the side is the TVV for the EGR

[wayno]

I know what the head casting is, but I did not want to let you assume something, if you looked at the chamber I might have gotten a unbiased answer or asked for more photos, it is an open chamber W53 head, but what I wanted to know is if it had a chamber like the L16 as I recall this head came off an early 620 truck, or if it was just a normal open chamber head, or even another possibility is someone opened it up themselves.

10 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

Look on the bottom edge of the head between the #1 and #2 plug for the head ID. Only the L16 got the 210 or 'number head' and it has the smallest combustion chamber of all the L heads. Earliest L20B, '74, got the A87 L18 head. '75-'77 L20Bs got the U67 head which was the only one without coolant ports for the intake. The '78-'80 L20B got the W58 with round exhaust ports. A87, U67 and W58 were all the same size and the largest combustion chamber volume.

 

The thermostat housing is from an L20B I think. The broken fitting on the side is the TVV for the EGR

 

If you look where the spark plug hole is in the combustion chamber you will see it is a totally flat surface almost all the way across that side, I do not recall any of my heads being flat in that area, it just looks weird.

 

 

[datzenmike]

My first thought was that it looks very deep. The L16 210 head is anything but deep and like I said is the smallest combustion chamber at 38.5cc. It looks shallow and is.

 

All I could find for the 210.

 http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ro37AG4lbFo/TymCP2JbzZI/AAAAAAAAAyY/tSsgsySzEoo/s200/12.2_cylinder_head_pic3.png

 

 

 

[banzai510(hainz)]

if oil is spraying I assume it s going thru the cam towers to the back side of the cam and out the hole to spray on you.

 

really if no oil it wouldnt take too long for a rocker arm to fail . lock up ,gaull ect....

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

On 5/11/2021 at 7:23 PM, wayno said:

It is not the alternator, power steering pump, coolant pump, or the distributor, I have this thing I do to find out where noises are coming from, I stick a large screwdriver against the object and stick my ear against the screw driver grip/handle, if the noise is coming from that object it will be significantly louder, it is not any of them, the trouble is I really cannot run it without the valve cover to do that as oil sprays everywhere as I tried, I shut it down right away as oil was going everywhere, every time cam turned it shot oil out of the hole in the lobe at an idle, all 8 of them were spraying oil all over the engine compartment, it's certainly not a Chevy small block.

 

I am starting to think it is the cam, if I remember I am going to take the truck to the machine shop and have them listen to it, it squeaks the worst at around 2000rpms which is 1000rpms for the cam, it would be a major pain to remove all the rockers and the cam gear just to spin it to see if it is turning freely as I do not want to make another head gasket, the two LZ head gaskets I bought have the coolant holes in the wrong places so that was kinda a waste of money, anyway I looked at all the cam towers and I do not see grindings/shavings/aluminum muck from when aluminum binds and wears away when it gets hot from turning ruining the cam towers or when there is a lack of oil and it goes dry, it is a very loud squeak at 2000rpms, all other times it sounds like loose rocker.

 

I checked the timing and it had changed again, I had it at 5 degrees BTDC the last time I set it but when I checked it this time it was at 15 degrees BTDC again, this is the second time it has done this, I am thinking it has to do with the idle RPM when it is cold versus hot, I have never had an engine act this way before in my life, it jumps 10 degrees, before it was at 5 degrees BTDC and I tighten down the distributor lock bolt, well I had to loosen the bolt to retard it and get it back on 5 degrees BTDC, I am running out of travel in the slot, it is really strange and it is the second time it has happened, it did it with the other distributor once.

 

I bought $50.00 worth of non-ethanol premium gas(92 octane rating) this afternoon and it did not even fill the tank, what it did do was change the idle, it would idle slightly rough at 700rpms, after I bought that gas and drove it home it dropped to 500rpms and it was rattling the whole truck, especially the exhaust system, I have an electric fuel pump and a return line, so the fresh gas gets to the SU carbs pretty fast.

Take the belt off and run it for a few seconds to see if the sound goes away.

 

Cams can squeak if the top of the head is warped, or if the cam towers are out of alignment. A squeaky cam is sure to seize eventually.

 

Have you confirmed that the top end is getting oil?

[datzenmike]

Oil enters a gallery running front to back in the L head. From there up each cam tower and into the cam which is drilled out from each end but not joined in the middle. Since there are 2 cam towers supplying oil to the front and 2 towers to the rear, one could be plugged but oil would still squirt out the holes on the cam lobes. I doubt very much a tower is not getting oil.

 

 A squeak would be muffled by the solid valve cover. It's fan belt, alternator, water pump or maybe the clutch fan if you have one.

 

Could even be a stone got thrown up and past the bottom half of the engine plate and is rubbing the flywheel.

 

[wayno]

8 hours ago, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

Take the belt off and run it for a few seconds to see if the sound goes away.

 

Cams can squeak if the top of the head is warped, or if the cam towers are out of alignment. A squeaky cam is sure to seize eventually.

 

Have you confirmed that the top end is getting oil?

 

I can do the belt thing but I have 2 belts, it sounds like it is in the valve cover to me, specifically the rear of the valve cover, but since it is not near as loud anymore I cannot hear it when the hood is up and I am right in front of the engine, but I can hear it when I am driving when it is at around 2000rpms, it is still there just not nearly as annoying, and it still sounds like a loose rocker also, it does not sound like a rod.

I expect I will make a tool that I can depress the valve springs to remove the rockers and remove them, jam the timing chain and remove the gear and see if the cam spins freely.

 

2 hours ago, datzenmike said:

Oil enters a gallery running front to back in the L head. From there up each cam tower and into the cam which is drilled out from each end but not joined in the middle. Since there are 2 cam towers supplying oil to the front and 2 towers to the rear, one could be plugged but oil would still squirt out the holes on the cam lobes. I doubt very much a tower is not getting oil.

 

 A squeak would be muffled by the solid valve cover. It's fan belt, alternator, water pump or maybe the clutch fan if you have one.

 

Could even be a stone got thrown up and past the bottom half of the engine plate and is rubbing the flywheel.

 

 

I do not have a clutch fan in this truck, when I ran it without the valve cover oil was spraying out of the cam lobes all over everything, I do have a power steering pump, when I could hear it squeaking I did the screw driver trick and it did not sound like it was coming from there, I did the alternator also, it did not squeak before and it did not sound like it was coming from there either, I did the water pump but I cannot really get that close to the shaft but it did not sound like that either, I did not try the oil pump nor did I try the distributor that I recall, it sounds like it is coming form the rear back inside the valve cover, I have 3 days to deal with it and figure it out, it is a lot harder to deal with now since it is not squeaking near as loud anymore.

 

[datzenmike]

Sounds like at the rear of the engine.

 

 

[wayno]

Everything makes me think it has something to do with the cam, it might not be the cam but I think it is the cam and I hope I am wrong as I cannot likely fix it if it is the cam, and I stress this, I hate, and I mean HATE making LZ head gaskets, the metal inside the gasket makes it so I cannot use a punch to make the coolant holes I need, I always wondered how sealik did it when he smashed the gasket between 2 pieces of wood and drilled the holes, how did the gasket not get ruined when crushing it between 2 pieces of wood, the material it is made of sticks to the palm of my hands when I hold it down to use a dremel to make the holes, I always wonder if this is the gasket that will not work out of the chute.

 

I think it is in the rear valve cover, when I first checked I checked the rear 2 lobes and what I seen I did not like, the cam is kinda rough but the rough spots are not in the lobe part that pushes the valves down, the rough part is where I use the gauge for valve clearance, so it is not pushing hard there, the spring should make it not even touch the cam in that area of the lobe, it was squeaking before the distributor change so that is not it and it appears to be at the other end anyway.

 

I just thought of something I never thought about before, I had to shave one of the nuts for valve adjustment as I could not get the proper clearance and I could not find a shorter lash pad, could something like that cause a squeak, it seems unlikely to me but the rockers are supposed to ride on the cam at a certain angle and maybe that is it as that is the area where I shaved the nut that locks the clearance.

[datzenmike]

When the valve wears and sinks up into the head it gets harder to make an adjustment, even running out of adjustment. Thinning the lock nut and even grinding down the pivot post slightly so it doesn't bottom  will keep the cam centered on the rocker pad. I don't see anything here that would squeak.

 

Blocks of wood won't clamp hard enough to crush a head gasket. Some have a graphite coating and it doesn't take much to have it stick to something else. The last HG was a felpro. I had the head on but not torqued down, just to check a few things. I lifted the head off and some of the graphite stayed on the block, some on the head. I think the graphite is a slippery coating to allow the head and block move independently of each other rather than grind the gasket. Who knows? 

 

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

15 hours ago, wayno said:

Everything makes me think it has something to do with the cam, it might not be the cam but I think it is the cam and I hope I am wrong as I cannot likely fix it if it is the cam, and I stress this, I hate, and I mean HATE making LZ head gaskets, the metal inside the gasket makes it so I cannot use a punch to make the coolant holes I need, I always wondered how sealik did it when he smashed the gasket between 2 pieces of wood and drilled the holes, how did the gasket not get ruined when crushing it between 2 pieces of wood, the material it is made of sticks to the palm of my hands when I hold it down to use a dremel to make the holes, I always wonder if this is the gasket that will not work out of the chute.

 

I think it is in the rear valve cover, when I first checked I checked the rear 2 lobes and what I seen I did not like, the cam is kinda rough but the rough spots are not in the lobe part that pushes the valves down, the rough part is where I use the gauge for valve clearance, so it is not pushing hard there, the spring should make it not even touch the cam in that area of the lobe, it was squeaking before the distributor change so that is not it and it appears to be at the other end anyway.

 

I just thought of something I never thought about before, I had to shave one of the nuts for valve adjustment as I could not get the proper clearance and I could not find a shorter lash pad, could something like that cause a squeak, it seems unlikely to me but the rockers are supposed to ride on the cam at a certain angle and maybe that is it as that is the area where I shaved the nut that locks the clearance.

1- head gasket -  Use a tin snips to finish the cut. It's not pretty, but it does work. You don't need to remove the head to remove a cam, so why worry about making a head gasket? Be sure to release the radiator cap before removing any head bolts, so built up pressure in the radiator doesn't cause the head gasket to leak.

 

2- valve cover - Valve cover bolts that are too long may cause the valve cover to move around and squeak against the bolt head, but you would see an oil leak too.

 

3- rocker geometry - Shaving the nuts to get more valve adjustment is a band aid to a problem. Generally speaking, if you go that route, it is possible that the cam wipe pattern is running off the end of the rocker. Yes, that could cause a squeak.

 

Mike mentioned a rock in the bellhousing. Good call. Is your clutch pedal adjusted with the correct amount of play? If not, maybe your throwout bearing is running up against the pressure plate just enough to squeak. Also, if you have ball and socket type exhaust flanges, if one of the bolts is loose, it could cause a squeak. Heck, any of the exhaust hangers could be squeaking for that matter.